4O YEARS 4O FACES Portraits and Stories from 1976 Through 2016 4O YEARS 4O FACES Portraits and Stories from 1976 Through 2016 This book is dedicated to the founding members of South Riverdale Community Health Centre TABLE OF CONTENTS Two Generations! Forty Years! ........................... 5 FACE 20: Jacob Allderdice ................................ 42 Our First 40 Years ......................................... 8 FACE 21: Cathy Crowe ..................................... 44 FACE 1: Dr. Michael Rachlis .............................. 14 FACE 22: Jorie Morrow .................................... .46 FACE 2: Putting a Face on Environmental Health. .16 FACE 23: Facing Off Against Racism .................... .48 FACE 3: 276 Pape Avenue ................................. 17 FACE 24: Salha Al-Shuwehdy ............................. .49 FACE 4: Peter Tabuns ...................................... 18 FACE 25: Andrew Sherbin ................................. 50 FACE 5: Bird Portraits ..................................... .19 FACE 26: Michael Holloway .............................. .52 FACES 6 & 7: Carol and Dan Kushner ..................... 20 FACE 27: Tara ............................................... 54 FACE 8: Frank Crichlow ................................... 22 FACE 28: Michèle Harding ................................ 56 FACE 9: Lisa Kha ........................................... 24 FACE 29: Jim Renwick ..................................... 58 FACE 10: Maggi Redmonds ............................... .26 FACES 30 & 31: Sheila and George Cram ................. 59 FACE 11: Liz Feltes ......................................... .27 FACE 32: Julie Dabrusin .................................. 60 FACE 12: Breathlines ....................................... 29 FACE 33: Respect Project .................................. 61 FACE 13: Ruth Gibson ..................................... .30 FACE 34: Marianne Cheetham ........................... .62 FACE 14: Wan Chin Cheong .............................. .32 FACE 35: Chris Gort ....................................... .64 FACE 15: Dr. Philip Berger ................................ .34 FACE 36: Debby Yuke ..................................... 66 FACE 16: Zoobia Safdar .................................... 36 FACES 37 & 38: Norma and Al Levitt ...................... 68 FACE 17: Paula Fletcher ................................... .38 FACE 39: Face to Face with New Technology ........... .70 FACE 18: Paint Me. .39 FACE 40: Faces of Those We’ve Lost ..................... 71 FACE 19: Merille Spence .................................. 40 What Will Happen in the Next 40 Years? ............. .72 “We have continued to build on the broad shoulders of our founders, The Centre’s Board of Directors whose wisdom we hold dear and sit on the rooftop garden whose values continue to exist in 2016 in everything we do.” 4 40 YEARS, 40 FACES TWO GENERATIONS! FORTY YEARS! Forty-one years ago this Community Health Centre was just a vision. Forty years ago it became a reality. And those pioneers and advocates who fought to get the lead out of the soil are the same community members who founded this Centre. We have indeed evolved from modest beginnings on Pape Avenue to 955 Queen Street East, 20 years later. And now, after two generations and 40 years, we have continued to build on the broad shoulders of our founders, whose wisdom we hold dear and whose values continue to exist in everything we do. Our walls echo with their inspiration as they continue to caution us with sage guidance to never lose our vision or compromise our passion as we work to create a healthier, connected community where everyone belongs. And, testimony to them, we have made a great start. As we welcome the next 40 years with new neighbours, new members, and new challenges, we will remember their stories and create our own, as we continue to deepen our work and hold fast to our vision. So please join us in our renewed and relentless commitment to building a healthier neighbourhood, community, city, and country, honouring the memory and wisdom of our founders, whose values of social justice and equity for which this Centre and this community have become renowned. David Willis Lynne Raskin Chair of the Board of Directors Chief Executive Officer Stories of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre 5 South Riverdale Community Health Centre opened its doors in November 1976. Over the last 40 years, the Centre has increased staffing from two doctors and a nurse practitioner, cleaners, and a bookkeeper to over 140 full- and part-time employees, including eight physicians, five nurse practitioners, and a full complement of other professionals, such as dietitians, health promoters, social workers, outreach and peer workers, and administrative support staff. After outgrowing the original Pape Avenue facility in 1986, SRCHC moved to the current building on Queen Street East in June 1998. The Centre has a long history of innovative and responsive approaches to improving health and wellness for all the communities we serve, including the development of our harm reduction program, Chinese-resident outreach, and clinical services for people who are not insured. We have been at the forefront of community initiatives and campaigns to address issues that affect community health, including working with community and partners to identify and solve the problem of lead in some of the neighbourhoods’ soil, and working in community coalitions to address income and food security and planning issues. 6 40 YEARS, 40 FACES THEN (1976–77) 2,700 THEN (1976–77) TOTAL 2.5 INTERACTIONS NOW STAFF 80,864 (2015–16) 140 NOW (2015–16) THEN (1976–77) $111,195 90 ACCESS POINTS BUDGET to South Riverdale Community THEN Health Centre services or (1976–77) 5,200 programs $10,510,335 NOW VOLUNTEER (2015–16) HOURS Total number of NOW 9,230 (2015–16) CLIENTS SERVED 11,490 NOW (2015–16) Stories of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre 7 May 12, 1976 • The South Riverdale Community Health Centre incorporates November 1976 • We welcome our first patients as Ontario’s 11th Community Health Centre. Our home is in a former police station 1977 • Five community workers are hired through a Canada Works program to reach community needs • Approximately 75 people attend our first annual meeting 1978 OUR FIRST 40 YEARS • During renovations, the Centre moves into St. Johns Presbyterian Church In 1969, a group of Riverdale churches hired • A chiropodist volunteers at the Centre until a court decision Dan Keating, a community organizer trained undermines the profession. Intent on establishing foot care, by Chicago activist Saul Alinsky to — in the we join lobby efforts to win professional standing parlance of the time — empower the people. • Three independent community programs (Parents Riverdale was then a blue-collar neighbourhood Anonymous, YWCA Teen Mothers, and The Healthiest Baby whose residents, many from Atlantic Canada Project) move into the second floor and Northern Ireland, worked at large Late 1970s manufacturers such as A.R. Clarke Tannery, • Medical staff work with Nellie’s Hostel and injured workers’ Canada Metal, Colgate-Palmolive, and consultants to support political refugees on hunger strikes. Lever Brothers. Community projects include polio and flu clinics, a Chinese- language program, and outreach to inmates at the Don Jail It was a lively — if troubled — community. Taxi drivers didn’t feel safe, there was industrial 1980 lead in the ground, and you could smell blood • Supermarket tours help low-income clients learn to stretch from the tannery. their food dollars Patients had to pay for their medical care, 1981 and only two doctors were practising family • The Board establishes a subcommittee to improve services medicine south of Gerrard Street. for women; a highly successful Women’s Health Day event is held the following year People still attended church, however, and • AIDS symptoms are first seen at the Centre; it is identified as social justice was on the agenda. a disease in 1983 Riverdale was ready. 8 40 YEARS, 40 FACES 1982 1985 • Patient profiles reveal that our clients are sicker and poorer • The new provincial government strengthens its commitment than the average Toronto resident to community-based services. The Centre host visitors • The Centre and the city carry out Canada’s largest screening investigating the feasibility of health centres from across for lead levels in blood testing 2,300 school children and Canada, the United States, Sweden, and Singapore adults. About one in six young children living south of 1986 Queen Street East between Logan Avenue and Leslie Street • The Board supports provincial legislation that prohibits have levels considered detrimental to their health physicians from billing above Medicare rates • The Ontario government announces that Community Health Centres, no longer experimental, will receive stable funding • Environmental activist Dr. Rosalie Bertell speaks at our 10th annual meeting • The Environmental Health Committee tours approximately a dozen contaminated industrial sites in Riverdale • Programs and services expand into two satellite locations 1983 1987 • • Toronto Public Health and the Centre open a family The Centre joins the National Action Committee on the planning and sexually transmitted disease clinic Status of Women • Our first legally recognized chiropodist starts working at Late 1980s the Centre • Programs include nutrition education for men living at • Long-standing Centre supporter Jim Renwick, a Riverdale the local John